


do not fear death

by Neko-no-Tsuki (LunaKat)



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Human InuYasha (InuYasha), Hypothermia, Inferiority Complex, Pre-Canon, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-23
Updated: 2020-09-23
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:48:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26608519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaKat/pseuds/Neko-no-Tsuki
Summary: For Inuyasha Sins Week. Day 3: Envy.Unlike him, Sesshomaru is immutable and unchanging and able to remain himself during the new moon.
Relationships: InuYasha & Sesshoumaru (InuYasha)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 71
Collections: Inuyasha's Seven Deadly Sins





	do not fear death

_“ **Do not fear death** so much but rather the inadequate life.”_  
—Bertolt Brecht

Just a few more hours until sunrise.

Inuyasha curses under his breath. The kind of curse that he thinks his mother would disapprove of, if she hadn’t passed away a few years back. Not that it really matters, because he’ll be twelve come spring and that means he’s plenty old enough to use adult language. Right? Right.

It’s too cold a night to be human. The world beyond the hollow he’s hunkered down in—some abandoned den that must have once belonged to a fox or a badger, something larger than a rabbit but smaller than he is, making it something of a tight fit—is frosted over by winter. A wide sheet of bone-white snow glowing fresh against the darkness, unbroken save for the shallow craters made by his earlier footsteps. Skeletal trees cupping handfuls of snow in their jagged branches, icicles glittering from their naked boughs. Hooting from an owl in the distance, slow and ominous as anything, like a warning of an ultimate end. Ever-so-slowly, the moonless night sky lightens on the horizon, growing grey with the promise of predawn. Every second until then is marked by crystalline exhales and prayers for the quickening of time.

He breathes warmth into his palms and rubs them together. It’s a good thing the fire-rat robes are as thick as they are, heavy and scratchy against too-fragile skin. They’re a bit too big to him right now (though his mother constantly assured him that he would grow into them, one day), so the suikan best works as a blanket wrapped around him to ward off shivers and keep the blue from climbing up his toes.

Stupid new moon. Stupid human periods. Stupid weird hanyou stuff that doesn’t even make sense. If he were his normal self right now, he’d be able to feel his face and his feet. And probably his ears, which would be where they’re _supposed_ to be. And he wouldn’t need to glare into the darkness just to make out shapes. But because his mother was human, because something happens inside his veins when the moon wanes that makes his mortal blood run thicker or his youkai blood thin out or whatever, he has to suffer through this monthly misery.

 _Just a few more hours_ , he tells himself, wrapping his arms tighter around his knees. _Just a few more hours._

Then the owl falls silent.

If he weren’t already dressed head-to-toe in goosebumps already, he thinks every hair on the back of his neck would stand up on instinct alone. Because animals don’t just suddenly go quiet like that. Not so abruptly, and not without warning. Not unless—

Something thumps in the distance. Crunches in the snow. A heavy footstep.

_Oh crap._

Heart quickening in his throat, he thinks back to the oni scent he caught on the wind earlier in the day, just as his sense of smell was abandoning him. It had been stale, and much further from where he was now, and he figured that meant it never came around this particular patch of the woods. But if he was wrong...

Calm down. He presses his spine against the earthen wall, breathes in the soil until he can almost imagine himself sinking into it. Calm down. Remember, youkai can smell fear. Calm _down_.

Another thumping footstep, far too close. “Oh ho,” booms a voice, a thick and growling noise loud enough to vibrate through the wood, “is that a _human_ I smell?”

Inuyasha’s heart sinks.

His mother _definitely_ wouldn’t approve of the inner dialogue in his mind now, as he peers at the hollow’s entrance with wide eyes. The world beyond is pale as a bleached bone, snow thinning around the entrance’s edge just before the earth dips and slopes into the space. He can make out the dark silhouettes of tree trunks amidst the winter whiteness, forks of roots breaking the ice. No sign of a massive oni’s foot anywhere in view. It must be behind him then.

Sunrise is still a few more hours away. There’s no other choice.

The sound of splintering wood is heard from above as he starts shuffling his way towards the entrance. No sudden movements, even when the earth above his head trembles, as plumes of dust and little pebbles come loose. One happens to bounce off his temple, light enough that it doesn’t hurt but hard enough to be felt. He can practically hear the claws scraping against the bark and oh gods this thing is _huge_ —

Just as he breathes in a lungful of frost-crisp air, legs bunched in anticipation—the roof over his head vanishes.

Every instinct he has screams to run.

Instead, he makes the mistake of looking up.

The tree is held captive in a massive clawed fist, suspended high above his head with the roots trailing at its end in a fractured mess dripping snow. The creature holding it up is massive to his eyes, large enough that the top of its broad head must brush against the branches when it walks, and that the curling horns crowning its brow must break boughs as it passes. It is a monster of rippling muscle, of skin colored slime-green, and it leers down at him with a smile of yellowed fangs each as long as his hand.

Inuyasha _runs_.

The world blurs whitely around him, dark trunks bursting from the ground like blackened bones. It’s still too dark to see anything by, save for snow and a band of deep, dismay grey that hovers indecisively on the horizon. Winter bites deep into his exposed skin, snow breaking beneath his bare feet and stabbing the vulnerable soles with the cold. It’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t lose his toes before the sun can save them.

It’ll be a miracle if he can _escape_. Sunrise is a few more hours away. He’s probably not going to live that long. This human body is too slow, too weak, too susceptible to the cold. Through ears that aren’t where they’re supposed to be, he can hear the oni’s rumbling laugh. Can hear the thudding of a massive footfalls that cross more distance than he can put between them.

Desperate blazes in his belly. He can feel the searing pain from his feet, and he doesn’t need to look to know that his soles have split open from the cold. That he’s leaving a bloody trail in his wake.

_Just keep running._

Just a few more hours. Just a few more hours. Just a few more—

The next thing he knows, he’s on the ground.

It takes him a moment to notice the throbbing pain in his forehead over the numbing cold, and a moment longer to realize he ran into something solid and unforgiving. That was what knocked him into the snow. Why he’s laying on his back now, squinting at the darkened sky, while wetness sinks bitingly through his once-dry clothes.

Stupid human senses. Stupid human eyes. Stupid moonless night.

Massive footfalls in the distance. Not too far off to catch up.

He bolts upright—or tries to, anyway, because his body decides now is a perfect time to pay him back for his earlier abuse. A gasp leaves him as the pain in his feet finally sinks in. All the shivering that he’d been managing to stave off before slams into him with a vengeance, rattling through his bones until he can’t even see straight. His teeth chatter so loudly he’s sure the oni can hear them from over a mile away, and the shuddering in his limbs is too strong for them to follow his orders. Even when he tries to move, his body just won’t obey. It’s so _cold_.

Stupid human fragility. Stupid human nights. Stupid periods of weakness. If he was himself right now, he wouldn’t be freezing like this. If he just didn’t change every month like he did...

_This can’t get any worse._

Crunching snow. A footstep far too small to be the oni’s. The nameless pressure of critical eyes on his spine.

… _I jinxed it, didn’t I?_

Slowly, shakily, Inuyasha raises his head. It takes blinking several times to clear the cold from his eyes before the whiteness bleeds into shapes—into the contours of a body, into an almost-human silhouette. A creature ghost-pale and nigh-indistinguishable from the winter backdrop, making themselves known only in a few sparse bursts of vivid color. Breath stalls in his lungs as he makes out the bloody crimson flowering on fine silk, the dark angles of form-fitting armor, the fluttering ripples of a purple-yellow obi.

A proud, pallid face hovering in the darkness, striped by magenta and stamped with a violet crescent. Amber eyes more frigid than winter itself. A distance that Inuyasha immediately wants to widen.

Sesshomaru.

Thus far, they have only crossed paths twice—once when his mother was still alive, and once after. Both times, Sesshomaru had made his intentions clear, and just barely failed to fulfill them. Both times, Inuyasha had youkai blood beating strong in his veins and, even then, only escaped by the skin of his teeth.

_Definitely jinxed it._

What can only be described as mortal terror bears down on him as Sesshomaru’s eyes rove him head to toe. Rake over his appearance. Take stock of the dark hair, the dark eyes, the blue in his lips and clawless fingertips and ears that aren’t where they should be.

A single step, snow crunching under a blackly booted heel. Inuyasha would flinch if he weren’t so cold. “Hn. It would seem even our father’s blood wasn’t strong enough to spare you from the hanyou’s curse.”

Huh. _Curse_ is... actually a good word for it. Because it’s not a blessing, and hardly a gift, and there’s really nothing good that comes out of it. It’s an affliction that haunts his body, stalks his bones, lives beneath his skin. Something wrought into him since he was born. Something that only he and others like him have to suffer through.

Not Sesshomaru, though. Their shared blood means nothing, in that sense. Unlike him, Sesshomaru is immutable and unchanging and able to remain himself during the new moon.

“How truly pathetic.” Through the wavering in his vision, Inuyasha makes out the livid stripes on Sesshomaru’s wrist, bright against porcelain skin, as he raises his claws.

With a paralyzing certainty, he knows that he is about to die.

… _I guess it was a nice life. While it lasted._

Either by divine intervention or just sheer dumb luck, the oni chooses _that_ moment to burst from the tree line. This time Inuyasha _does_ flinch, drawing back with fear hammering hard against his ribcage. But if Sesshomaru at all notices the intrusion, then he doesn’t so much as bat an eyelash in acknowledgement, even as the hulking beast skids to a halt before them.

Then again, why should Sesshomaru be bothered? The bastard calling himself his brother has the luxury of his strength remaining coiled tightly in his limbs, fingers tipped by deadly claws and fangs stuck stubbornly in his mouth. He stands impassive and white as winter, all but immune to time’s passage and unaffected by the lunar cycle. His very presence makes the air around hum with supernatural power, with the anticipation of a storm on the brink of breaking, a deadly grace pouring from his being that Inuyasha, even when he’s normal, couldn’t hope to match. You can taste your death in the back of your mouth just by looking at him—no one would dare to call him filthy or abomination or a freak of nature, even if it was true.

Maybe the oni feels it too. Maybe that’s why it comes to the abrupt stop that it does, awed by the power throbbing all around them. It is a mark of the weak, they say, to recognize their betters.

Clawed hands twitch as the oni lingers at the edges of the clearing, as close as Sesshomaru’s murderous aura will allow. Leering yellow eyes hastily flash between them, taking hasty stock of the situation. And a fanged sneer breaks out on its ugly face.

Stupidly, it takes a bolt step forward. “That human is my prey,” it growls.

Without so much as blinking, Sesshomaru replies, “The life of this wretch belongs to this Sesshomaru. Begone with you.”

Somehow, the dismissal offers Inuyasha a strange relief. It shouldn’t, because it means his brother is focused entirely on his death, and that’s pretty bad, but. Well. If, even in this brittle human body, he’s worth more to such an absurdly powerful creature than even a hulking beast—then that counts for something, doesn’t it?

…doesn’t it?

Another step and a crystal puff escapes its nostrils. “Like hell. I _said_ , it’s _mine_.”

At once, the relief dies, and a frustrated shame takes its place. The oni is going to die—he can feel it, palpable as a heartbeat, the moment the monster’s fate became sealed after failing to recognize just how far outclassed it is—but at least it can still move. At least it can still talk back. At least it can still _fight_.

As he is now, Inuyasha can’t even do _that_.

Yet another stupid step forward. “Now get _outta_ here ‘fore I—”

And then the oni’s hand is on the ground, weeping green blood.

It happens faster than the eye could blink, faster than a thought could cross your mind. There is a moment where the hand is attached, where time is frozen with the image of clawed fingers reaching out for him, shivering in the snow and unable to run for the mortal weakness in his limbs. Then there is a moment where the oni is howling in agony while stumbling back, clutching the severed stump of its wrist where its hand used to be, blood spurting wildly from the wound. And they would almost seem unconnected, if not for the fact that Sesshomaru is oh-so-casually flicking filth from his claws.

“Impudence,” he deadpans. “You will die now.”

His back is to Inuyasha, suddenly. Attention focused elsewhere. Leaving him to glare—at the overflowing fur off one shoulder, the silver spill of hair unchanged by the moonless night, the faint ripple of flaring youki around his silhouette—and try desperately not to feel abandoned.

“Perhaps you should watch, half-breed. So you can truly understand the difference between you and I.”

 _You think I don’t know already?_ Inuyasha wants to spit, but his (stupid, blunt, _human_ ) teeth are chattering too hard.

A roar leaves the oni as it lunges. It doesn’t make it very far.

Again, in less than a span of a blink—there is an oni one moment, and a great gush of blood and viscera the next. All the monster gets as its last words is a choked snarl as it is cut effortless in half, struck down faster than mortal eyes could follow. The only eulogy it gets is the muted thump of displaced snow as the split cadaver lands, anticlimactically.

And Sesshomaru lands, elegant and unruffled as anything.

Something stings in Inuyasha’s eyes, as he watches Sesshomaru regard the corpse with the dull dispassion that only a higher being can muster. It’s a sharp heat behind his eyelids that he feels himself is nothing, means nothing. Just like how the thickness in his throat means nothing, or the pressure that takes residence in his nasal cavity. All of it means nothing, he’s being stupid. He’s being stupid for even _thinking_ about being upset over something so ridiculous.

Because he _knows_. He’s _always_ known, what it means to be a hanyou among full-blooded youkai. And even though he _already knows_...

 _Seeing_ it is something else.

One of them is mortal, and trembling in place because he can’t even muster the strength to stand—and one just eradicated a massive monster in a single movement, without so much as a hint of difficulty.

One of them is pathetic.

_Bastard._

By the time Sesshomaru finally deigns to reward him with attention again, Inuyasha has forced himself to rise to his knees. He’s still numb all over, so cold he can’t even hear his own heart beating in his ears, but he has to stand up, at the very least. Human or no, he can’t just sit here while the bastard calling himself his brother carves him open.

Sunrise is a few more hours away. He’s _definitely_ not going to live that long.

“Oh? Have you decided to take your death standing, little brother?” A few brisk steps, and he doesn’t even need to look up to know there’s a mocking smirk there.

Except he can’t stand. Too cold. Legs trembling too much. He has to lean forward on his arms just to stay upright, gasping silver breaths. How he never noticed the cold before, managed to endure it within the hollow, is beyond him now.

Dammit. He can’t stand. He’s going to die. He’s going to die as a _human_.

“...no. To call you that in such a wretched form is too kind. Now you are nothing more than a disgraceful mortal.”

Sticky heat blooms behind his ribs, a slimy and squirming feeling against his lungs. Inuyasha tells himself it is rage, indignation. He tells himself—while glaring down at the snow that was crushed by his fall, the cold searing at the wetness in his eyes—it isn’t anything like humiliation or shame, because he has nothing to be ashamed of. It isn’t his fault that his youkai blood peters out on the new moon. It isn’t his fault. It isn’t.

“S-s-s-shaddup,” he manages.

At that, silence falls. He can feel Sesshomaru’s gaze roving him again, vivisecting all the things that are wrong with him. All the things that happen to him once a month because he’s his mother’s son more than their father’s. He tries not to flinch.

_Don’t you dare look down on me, you bastard. Don’t you dare. You’re not **better** than me just because you’re a full youkai, damn you. You’re not._

But he can all but _feel_ the contempt in those eyes. Can feel the gloating, the silent satisfaction at watching the half-breed wretch fall short yet again. Just another reason that he’s inferior and worthless and not worthy of their father’s blood. Just another reason to lord over him the superiority of a creature untouched by mortality, immune to the moon and what happens when it disappears.

If it were just the other way around. If it were just that pompous bastard kneeling in the snow, shivering and raw and human, counting the seconds until the end. If it were him who was full-blooded, ever-powerful and delighting in another’s weakness.

If he were just not himself. If he were just a _true_ youkai...

Then—footsteps. _Retreating_ footsteps.

The shock, more than anything, allows Inuyasha to momentarily forget the cold and raise his head with more strength than he has. His vision is still shivering violently as he makes out the way Sesshomaru’s back shrinks towards the tree line, taking all his rippling grace and murderous intent and pure-blood power with him.

What the? “O-Oi!”

“Don’t mistake this as mercy,” Sesshomaru calls over his shoulder, as though Inuyasha could ever think, for even half a second, that his bastard of a brother could be anything _close_ to “merciful”. “Killing you in this state is beneath me.”

It feels like being slapped. It feels like being stabbed in the stomach. It feels like something delicate breaking, deep in the very pit of his being. It feels like wanting to scream but forgetting how.

Is he really so wretched that even the person wanting to kill him so badly won’t even touch him?

_Don’t turn your back on me! Get **back** here! Don’t treat me like I’m **worthless** , you—_

In the time it takes to blink, Sesshomaru is gone.

Frustration burns in his stomach. Inuyasha’s fists curl in the snow, so numb he’s sure that he must have gotten frostbite somewhere down the line. Stupid new moon. Stupid human periods. Stupid _hanyou_ _blood_. It’ll be a miracle if he doesn’t end up losing any of his fingers to the cold, even after the sun has risen to save him.

It’ll be a miracle if something like him can ever match up to someone like Sesshomaru.

… _I hate you._

Just a few more hours until sunrise.

**Author's Note:**

> This took longer to write than I thought it would, whoops.


End file.
